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Climate Change

GIF of the Day: Paul Chan

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 19, 2017

burningkindlepointone.gif (2011)

There’s a dark humor to Paul Chan’s work that seems appropriate to today’s socio-political climate. That’s not surprising, considering his 2011 interview with Rhizome touches on our last conservative government’s disastrous invasion of Iraq as an impetus for art making. “weatherman.gif”, for example was created in 2004, shortly after the war began. It feel especially relevant now—especially considering the East Coast’s crazy temperature swings today and apocalyptic climate outlook.

Weatherman.gif, gif based on scene from RE:The_Operation (2004)

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Monday Links: Apocalyptic Dinner Parties, Legal Battles Over Sculptures

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 17, 2017

Adrián Villar Rojas, “The Theater of Disappearance”

Adrián Villar Rojas’ The Theater of Disappearance, installed on the roof of the Met through the summer, looks so cool. The artist used the museum’s advanced imaging technology to scan and collage overlooked works from the musuem’s collection. That includes everything from medieval tombs to plaster casts of Renaissance sculptures and banquet tables. These new hybrid sculptures are rendered in black-and-white and feel like a strange end-of-the-world party. I can’t wait to see this IRL. [artnet News]
Gallerists have been returning, or refusing to display, the work of South African artist Zwelethu Mthethwa following his conviction in the murder of sexworker Nokuphila Kumalo. [IOL]
Designer Antonino Cardillo added an extension to a Roman art gallery inspired by the opening scene of Wagner’s Das Rheingold opera. Which means, apparently, that every surface has been painted The-Exorcist-pea-soup-vomit-green. I am having a hard time imagining how artwork is going to live in this space. [Dezeen]
Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor behind Wall Street’s famous “Charging Bull” sculpture is suing to get “Fearless Girl” removed from in front of his piece, claiming it violates his rights as an artist by changing his work’s meaning. Jeff John Roberts points out why this case isn’t likely to go very far. [Fortune]
Somewhat related: sculptor Steve Tobin is suing nearby Trinity Church for removing his site-specific sculpture from its courtyard. Tobin created the sculpture in the place of a sycamore tree killed by falling debris on 9/11. Now, the church has put it out to pasture—literally, at a retreat center in Connecticut. [The New York Times]
Allie Wist, an associate art director at Saveur magazine, has a new photo series and recipe project about the dinner menus of the future. Lots of saltwater seafood, thanks to sea level rise, and not a lot of climate-sensitive crops (like chocolate). This is depressing. [NPR]
Christchurch is still recovering from the devastating earthquake that struck New Zealand in 2011. The Christchurch Art Gallery, which was closed for five years after damage, still hasn’t recouped its pre-quake visitor numbers. And now the museum faces higher insurance costs that make blockbuster shows impossible. [The Press]

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Friday Links: Texas Enema Performance Art Ends Up Messy

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on February 24, 2017

“My bartender was throwing up behind the bar… Plus, it was indecent exposure. They made performance art look bad.” – Mariana Lemesoff, owner of Houston venue Avant Garden on a performance by Sonic Rabbit Hole. Member Michael Clemmons is accused of butt-chugging a protein shake and then projectile shitting all over a fundraiser party for an artist with cancer. [The Huffington Post]

Programmer Christopher Hesse’s image translation software is amazing. Basically, you can draw a rudimentary building or shoe and an AI will render it semi-photo-realistically based on its knowledge of images from internet databases (think Google Deep Dream in reverse). But what the internet uses this incredible technology for is cats. Terrifying, terrifying drawings of monster cats. How long until someone makes the scary porn version of this? [The Next Web]

“Now more than ever, in my short lifetime at least, we need the ‘Scullys’ of the world to step up. Whether you’re squinting at a lab bench, or giving a voice to the oppressed in a courtroom, or chasing justice in three-inch heels, you are an integral part of the fight. You will not always win. But like Scully, I implore you to persist.” -Abby Norman on the importance of The X-Files, the show that inspired her (and countless other girls) to pursue science. [Paste]
Speaking of science, it’s close to 20 degrees above normal high temperatures today in New York and the surrounding area, a phenomenon scientists call Climate Change. They are worried that these changes will endanger all life on earth, but some people don’t believe the changes are real. One of these people has just been appointed head of the EPA. [The Internet]
The New York Times has announced it will embark on a massive brand campaign In an effort to educate the public on what journalists do, how facts are mined, and the importance of truth, narrative and responsible media in the age of Trump. This is important. Subscribe to the Times and support what they do. We’ve got independent media, and the the judicial system to blunt Trump right now and that’s it. If you want to make a difference, that’s where you spend your money. [The New York Times]
How Soleilmoon Recordings, a Northeast Portland indie record outlet, landed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups. [Willamette Weekly]
Related: Depeche Mode wants everyone to know that Richard Spencer’s infatuation with them is most definitely a one-way street. [Gothamist]
New York could add thousands of relatively affordable basement apartments to the city’s existing single-family housing stock. The biggest obstacle that stands in a pilot program’s way: parking minimums. It’s beyond absurd that nearly every American city’s housing initiatives are thwarted by car-related zoning, as if owning a car were mandatory and regulating where people store their belongings were a government issue. [Curbed]
Well, that didn’t last for four years. Shia LaBeouf has terminated his streaming performance HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US, which had been moved to New Mexico, after gunshots were heard in the vicinity. [People]

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Have Your Cake & Smash It Too

by Michael Anthony Farley on February 6, 2017

Welcome to the new normal. We at AFC have noticed a decline in artistic output from Brooklyn’s DIY scene as of late, while commercial galleries and institutions in Manhattan (and a few in Queens) have been gearing-up for battle mode with politically-charged programming. We’re hoping this is because everyone in Brooklyn is too busy thinking about resistance, and not because they’ve fled the country.

Tuesday night, The New School is hosting a talk about female bodies online, and Wednesday, the New Museum is opening a massive Raymond Pettibon show. After checking it out, head down the block to ICP, where curators will be discussing the loaded Perpetual Revolution: The Image and Social Change. More talks will come Thursday, such as the Brooklyn Museum’s call to defend immigrants and the Flux Factory/ABC No Rio potluck/opening/discussion about artists’ mutual aid in times like these. Friday night, take a break from political angst to get lost in the dreamy paintings of Jordan Kasey at Nicelle Beauchene, or the likely dreamier office set E.S.P. TV has staged at Pioneer Works. The weekend brings more great art and opportunities for creative resistance: be sure to check out the Queens Museum’s event to build climate change resistance coalitions between artists and activists.

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Tuesday Links: Biennale Puts Good Art on Doomed Island, Trump Puts Bad Art in Doomed Office

by Michael Anthony Farley on January 24, 2017

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Biennale de La Biche exists on a tiny island which will be swallowed up by sea level rise, along with all of the artworks. This place looks so, so beautiful. [artnet News]
Thank you Obama! On his last day in office, Obama’s U.S. Department of Transportation began an investigation into racist infrastructure spending practices by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. This follows a suit filed by the NAACP, ACLU, and others alleging the Republican administration violated Title VI by cancelling the Baltimore Red Line. That critical subway-to-surface rail line would’ve served predominantly Black (and Leftist) neighborhoods that didn’t vote for Hogan. He instead distributed those funds to highway expansion projects in the sparsely-populated Republican areas that voted for him. [The Baltimore Sun]
Can we talk about how terrifying/surreal it is that Republicans are pushing legislation to criminalize protests, and that Teen Vogue is now a more trusted policy news source than a substantial chunk of non-print media? [Teen Vogue]
Citizens of Trump’s America and recipients of our 24/7 barrage of “alternative facts” and commentary, perhaps you have heard about the White House’s bust of Churchill, and its various locations? Why the fuck this is a news story is beyond me, but apparently most of the news outlets covering this non-news item have gotten its provenance wrong. You see, there is not one hideous bust by the late English sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, but two. Two ugly busts of Winston Churchill. One that was sent to be repaired, and one that was lent by the British embassy while said bust was being repaired. Apparently Obama put one on a table somewhere (scandalous!) and Trump put it in the Oval Office. Now, Trump wants both of these sculptures for some reason that is utterly unbeknownst to me, but of great importance to most American internet users, apparently. 9/11 even gets brought up in here. [The Washington Post]
The Saatchi Gallery’s upcoming From Selfie to Self-Expression will be “the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from the old masters to the present day.” It’s a show about selfies, at a gallery founded by an advertising magnate, sponsored by a cell phone company. If I took a selfie right now, you’d see the world’s biggest eye-roll. [The Art Newspaper]
After more than 10 years in Gowanus, Brooklyn Art Space is shuttering. The silver lining (for you): they’re having a huge sale of art supplies, studio furniture, books, and more! [Facebook]
The new home of the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami—a splinter institution born from board members fleeing the troubled MOCA North Miami—should be open before ABMB. Expect one helluva party (or at least one helluva fight for tickets, drunks in heels crying outside a velvet rope, etc…) [Miami Herald]
OMA has completed a new headquarters for the Qatar Foundation in Doha. I’m a huge OMA fan, but can’t shake the feeling that the architects were just building a film set out of the dystopian love story Code 46. [Dezeen]

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GIF of the Day: Let’s Cut Off America’s Flaccid Orange Dick

by Michael Anthony Farley on November 10, 2016

giphy

There are a lot of reasons we love Phaan Howng, one of the artists in our F.A.G. exhibition Strange Genitals. For starters, she made a giant neon dick covered in vagina-like orifices full of tiny penis teeth. She also strapped it to the hood of her car and drove it Brooklyn from her studio in Baltimore, along with the work of two other artists, when we had a logistical problem due to a family emergency. Phaan is a trooper.

That’s evidenced by her election story. She’s registered in Florida, but has been in Baltimore to attend grad school at MICA. When she realized she missed the deadline for an absentee ballot, she flew down to her hometown just to cast her vote in person. Considering how close the election was there, it’s pretty admirable.

So Phaan was justifiably pissed off when her fellow Floridians decided to use their hefty electoral college power to elect Donald Trump, and keep all-around-douchebag Senator Marco Rubio. She posted this GIF to Facebook today, and I think it’s a sentiment we can all relate to—the symbolism of hacking off America’s weird, flacid orange dick is cathartic on several related levels.

Come see Phaan’s own, slightly-less apocalyptic phallus at AICAD in Brooklyn next Wednesday, during Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s artist talk at 7:00 p.m. Or see it in Florida itself, during our restaging of Strange Genitals at SATELLITE during Art Basel Miami Beach! Let’s enjoy Miami Beach while we still can! Given our new government’s environmental policies, it’s likely to disappear a lot faster than we planned. When that happens this GIF is going to seem a lot less funny and much more prescient.

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Friday Links: Augmented Reality Bites

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 20, 2016

Keiichi Matsuda [h/t Gizmodo]

In order to get their AI to speak less like a robot, Google force-fed it thousands of romance novels and created a new language game to teach the bot to create paragraphs out of two statements. What resulted is some weird, lonely poetry. Someone get this thing a drink. [Android Authority]

In other “why would humanity even want this technology?” news, Keiichi Matsuda follows the burgeoning field of “augmented reality” to its logical conclusion: an annoying world full of pop-up ads and invasive game-like marketing. [Gizmodo]

The British Museum closed yesterday after Greenpeace activists climbed the columns on the museum’s facade and unfurled banners advertising a fake “Sunken Cities” exhibition about the effects of climate change, listing locations such as New Orleans. The demonstration was in protest of oil company BP’s funding of the museum, which many claim has impacted the way museums discuss climate change and other environmental issues. [artnet News]

Joan Miró’s grandson, Joan Punyet Miró, auctioned off 28 works by the artist to raise nearly $70,000 for refugees yesterday. The elder Miró, like many Spanish artists of the era, was himself a refugee during the Spanish Civil war. [Hyperallergic]

Be still our hearts: Betty Tompkins and Marilyn Minter discuss being a woman in art school in the 70’s, dive bars, and how damn long it took to achieve “success” in the art world. [Blouin Artinfo]

Whoa. Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a process to turn wood transparent. The article discusses the obvious implications for architecture, but this could be the next big material for sculptors. [The New York Times]

Here’s an article arguing that cities should stop investing in museums and champion music festivals instead. According to writer Jonathan Wynn, they are preferable because they are cheaper, adaptable and require less public funding. [The Conversation]

People love to talk about how the CIA boosted the careers of abstract expressionists, but the CIA’s own art collection is ironically a tad closer to Soviet Realism, in that it depicts the glorious (and often secretive) fruits of its own workforce’s labors. Lots of historical representation here, as well as a cryptic still-life. Is the next big conspiracy theory that the CIA launched the wave of photorealism in 1970’s painting? [NPR]

Novelist Helen DeWitt does Frieze Magazine’s Questionnaire. This isn’t our cup of tea—it’s too self-promote-y and pompous—but we’ve seen it get a few high fives over twitter regardless. You be the judge. [Frieze]

Art collector Jho Low is being investigated by the FBI for shady dealings with Malaysian financial corruption. This has led to Low liquidating assets such as shares in a Manhattan hotel and his Basquiat painting, which he sold at a nearly $14 million loss to another finance douchebag. Does anyone else have news fatigue from trying to figure out exactly what the illegal/unethical, convoluted thing crooked investment people did when reading about the art market? [The Wall Street Journal]

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Thursday Links: It Sucks to Be Pyotr Pavlensky

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 19, 2016

If you’ve ever wanted to get up close to “The Port of Rotterdam” by Paul Signac without visiting the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, now’s your chance.

The Google Cultural Institute has begun archiving famous artworks with gigapixel images, which contain over one billion pixels. You can now zoom in on images of paintings by Van Gogh, Pissarro, and more down to the brushstrokes. Google sees these documents as a tool for conservators, and also a chance to replicate the experience of seeing an artwork “in person”. Walter Benjamin is rolling in his grave. [Google]

Art activist group “BP or Not BP” has staged an intervention at the British Museum, protesting BP’s sponsorship of the show “Sunken Cities”. Activists say that the sponsorship legitimizes the oil company as a leader of climate change. [Hyperallergic]

We haven’t listened to this podcast yet, but it sounds interesting. Museums are increasingly buying contemporary art, which some consider a gamble, as what does well on the art market might not have much cultural weight in a permanent collection in a decade or two. [Quartz]

Legendary LES squat/art space ABC No Rio will be demolished soon. The current historic building is structurally deficient, but the collective has raised funds to replace it with a new, hyper-energy-efficient structure, so all is not lost. [Curbed]

“The fragility of freedom is the simplest and deepest lesson of my life and work,” wrote Fritz Stern, a leading German Historian who died in his home in Manhattan at the age of 90. He spent a lifetime trying to understand the circumstances that lead to Nazi Germany. [The New York Times]

Arthur Fellig, A.K.A. “Weegee” was a crime reporter who captured a lot of New York’s colorful streetlife and nightlife in the twentieth century. An exhibition focused on his photos of the Bowery of yesteryear will be opening soon at Mana Contemporary, and it looks like it’s going to be a fun show. [ArtAsiaPacific]

Pyotr Pavlensky, the Russian protest artist who famously nailed his balls to the Red Square, has had a rough year. He’s in prison, where he alleges he was beaten by guards so severely they broke several ribs. [Artforum]

And today, Russian courts convicted Pavlensky for his involvement in protests agains the Putin regime’s invasion of the Ukraine. [ARTnews]

Cara Ober intervies Hans Haacke about art schools, the Cooper Union debacle, and institutional critique. It’s a good read. [BmoreArt]

To counter a $3 million budget deficit, director Anne Pasternak is offering Brooklyn Museum staff buyouts. The museum employs over 300 people, and is facing rises in operating expenses. [artnet News]

And in other Brooklyn controversies, social media is super pissed about news that Williamsburg’s Hasidim are receiving a disproportionate share of New York City’s Section 8 housing vouchers. This anger is largely attributed to the fact that the insular religious sect owns so much property in the city, and as landlords, are blamed for escalating rents and gentrification—particularly against people of color—all while providing low-income housing for members of their own religion who opt not to work. Here’s the exposé that started it all. [New York Daily News]

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FOX News Attempted to Troll Me at ABMB

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 11, 2015

Last week, FOX News personality Jesse Watters visited Art Basel Miami Beach to troll the art world. The segment aired last night, after heavy redaction and blooper clips being used as filler. This is how I remember our conversation transpiring.

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Today, Miriam Simun Lets Us Taste the Future and it’s Gross (Mostly)

by Michael Anthony Farley on November 4, 2015

Today, Miriam Simun’s GhostFood will be offering viewers a chance to smell the future at Baltimore’s Lexington Market. The project is presented by The Contemporary and imagines a future where we’ll have to eat imitations of climate-endangered foods.

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